Dipesh Kaura, General Manager for South Asia, Kaspersky on year-end 2021 and the year ahead:
Prateek: What were the key learnings in the year 2021?
Dipesh Kaura: The pandemic that brought about a technological advancement, has also led to a surge in the risk and threats of cyber-attacks. Owing to the increasing severity and regularity of cyber-attacks, there is a need to bridge the cybersecurity skill gap and fill the shortage of cyber talent. Building and Sustaining Cybersecurity Awareness has proved to be a key learning amidst the pandemic. As we made the quick transition to work-from-home, cyber attackers have become more aggressive than ever and have been utilizing the pandemic to weaponize their attacks. This calls for the need to double down on creating a cyber awareness, ongoing training and regular fire drills. Planning enough to deal with potential cyberattacks is a crucial step that the industry must take into consideration. Conventional approaches to cybersecurity won’t work in a world fluctuating as speedily as it is now. The outbreak has been an initiator and accelerator of change, and organizations are required to be able to acclimatize quickly as a core business capability. The most significant lessons of COVID 19 is to be armed with modern solutions for any such uncertainties.
Prateek: How the IT world has changed in the last year?
Dipesh Kaura: The IT landscape has always been in a constant state of transformation. The impacts of the pandemic are having a noteworthy impact particularly on digital technology which is an important aspect of present-day economic development owing to its wide usage amidst the pandemic. Uncertainties of robot-induced joblessness are on an increase as tasks conventionally performed by humans are now being done by making use of robots and artificial intelligence mechanisms. But technology has also proved to be a job creator amidst the uncertainties. Upsurges in competence brought about by virtual technology have been facilitating businesses to expand their industry hold. Digital platforms have been generating entirely new occupations and jobs. Businesses today are reaching out to remote markets that lack the needed infrastructure. To restructure technology as an employment creator, it’s vital to comprehend how, exactly, the present-day wave of technology is changing, and how policy makers and businesses can familiarize to it.
Prateek: Which was the most exciting product?
Dipesh Kaura: I would say our EDR solutions, in fact Kaspersky is recognised as a 2021 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Endpoint Protection Platform, following a customer rating of 4.7 out of 5. We have been named a Customers’ Choice for all four years that the recognition has been acknowledged by Gartner.
We also have our SIS Threat Data Feeds which we signed a number of deals in the region, where it provides an ongoing stream of data related to potential or current threats to the customer. The feed provides information on attacks including zero-day attacks, malware, botnets and other security threats, allowing organisations to make better informed decisions for their cybersecurity plans.
Prateek: What will be the company’s focus area in the year 2022?
Dipesh Kaura: Although reactive approaches have commendably helped in dealing with cybersecurity attacks in the past, conventional approaches to combat the threat won’t suffice. We predict that 2022 to be challenging for industrial control systems (ICS) and industrial enterprises. Going forward, to respond to ICS threats, Kaspersky intends to use technology as an enabler by embracing futuristic technological advancements like XDR, EDR, ICS/OT Security, MSSP, and Threat Intelligence to name a few. In the battle against protection tools, we seek to diminish the noticeable malicious footprint of attacks through these innovations.
